Marshlands by Emily Pauline Johnson

Answer these questions:

1. The speaker refers to the edge of the sky as its ‘lip’.
a. Why has she described the lip as ‘sun-lost’? How has it lost
the sun?
Marshlands, portrays a pristine picture untouched by the human
activities. Science characterizes the marshlands, making the
imagery more vivid. The first stanza describes the sky that is
looking down at the marshes. The lip is ‘sun-lost’ because the sun
has almost vanished from the sky. It is cloudy with an impending
storm.
b. What does the ‘sun-lost lip’ meeting the ‘brim’ of the marsh
look like?
The thin wet sky yellows at the “rim” when the sun-lost lip
touches the brim. The poet here is talking about the horizon
which is reflecting some sunlight in contrast to the overcast sky
above the marshlands.

2. What in the marsh look like ‘large cups of gold’? Can you
explain why they have been described like that?
The low lying pools of mud in the swamps are filled with moss and
mould. They look like “large cups of gold”.
There are mild dews growing in these low-lying pools. The waning
sunlight reflects in these pools, making them resemble large cups of
gold.

3. Why has the wild goose come to the marsh? Where is it going?
The wild goose has come to the marsh looking for shelter, for the
night. The goose knows that somewhere amongst the “rushes” and
“oozing lichens” it can find its home.

4. Which words from the poem tell us how big the crane is and how
it is flying?
 The word, “heavy wing” tells us that the crane is quite big. Its flight
has been described as “lazy”. This means that the crane was
probably not flying very fast.

5. How is the fog that comes over the marshes described? Do we

know what time of day it is when the fog arrives?
The fog that comes over the marshes has been described as “thick,
grey and humid”. It is almost night when the fog creeps up around
the marshes. We can deduce this from the phrase, “while the
marshes sleep”.

6. The poem describes what the marshlands are like during a shift
in time in the day. What shift is this?
The poem describes the appearance of the marshlands during sunset.

7. What breaks the silence of the marshlands? What do you think

is the effect of one lone sound in the expanding stillness of the
marshes?
In a nagging monotony, the lizard shrills his tune from among the
marshlands. The tune breaks the silence of the swamps. The effect of
one lone sound in the infinity of stillness makes the impact of silence
profound. It in fact magnifies the silence and eventually gets
engulfed by it.

8. Have the marshlands changed from the first stanza to the last?
Compare how different they look and feel.
The transformation of the marshlands takes place in a short time-
span, between sunset and nightfall. The poet has experimented with
the colours of the marshlands which turn from yellow to golden and
finally to shadowy grey when fog enshrouds the wetlands at night.